Crowdfunding site Patreon has been hacked and a huge amount of data has been leaked online

David Goehring, Flickr
Crowdfunding site Patreon has been targeted by hackers, and it looks like a large amount of internal data — including email addresses and messages between users — has been leaked online.

Patreon confirmed the breach in a statement published on Thursday. "Yesterday I learned that there was unauthorized access to a Patreon database containing user information," CEO Jack Conte wrote. "Our engineering team has since blocked this access and taken immediate measures to prevent future breaches. I am so sorry to our creators and their patrons for this breach of trust. The Patreon team and I are working especially hard right now to ensure the safety of the community."

Since then a several-gigabyte file of data apparently exfiltrated from Patreon's systems has been released online and is being shared on forums discussing the hack. Business Insider has not independently verified the leak, but security researcher Troy Hunt has accessed it and says it appears to be legitimate. Another individual Business Insider spoke to who has access to the files also says the dump appears to be authentic.

According to Hunt, the data leaked includes messages sent between users, email addresses, campaigns and their supporters, and more.

The hack is reminiscent of the widely publicised Ashley Madison hack in August. The extra-marital dating site was targeted by a hacker who released the personal details of tens of millions of customers apparently trying to pursue affairs on the website, as well as the CEO's emails.

In some ways, the Patreon breach is less immediately compromising for the users affected by it — no-one is likely to try and blackmail them over the fact they had an account, as was the case with Ashley Madison. But it still constitutes a massive violation of privacy, and the data is highly likely to be cross-referenced with other stolen data-sets and used in scamming and identity theft attempts.